Substantially Fading
by Shattered Serenity
Summary: Tenten realizes that not all dreams are meant to come true... [One shot]


**A/N: **Yes, I have actually created a one shot! If you must know, this fic was inspired by Starriecat's story _Unpainted Dreams_. Check it out, and yes, I am giving Starriecat free publicity. But that story deserves it. :D Hope it's not too much like hers. -.-;;;

**Disclaimer:** Me no own, you no sue. Yes?

**Summary:** Tenten realizes that not all dreams come true… One shot

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Blood pours onto your hand, seeping through your pores like melting metal. You look into the victim's face with a dull ache, waiting for him to spring to life so you can pour out the blood again. But his face remains scrunched up in a never-ending pain, his eyes at least closed from the kunai protruding through his stomach. A voice calls you back to your leader, and surprised, you glance up to meet hot lavender. He's still there waiting for you, taunting you with looks that will never flourish into something more real, something more attainable.

And then avert your own gaze, avoiding the searing white and continuing your path of destruction.

It's always like this. You kill; he watches. You watch; he kills. A bittersweet duet seeming to never end in the lifeless corpses.

But you know better.

You know that it won't always work this way, staring at him from afar as he takes another soul. You know that it won't be all happy in the end. You _know_. And yet you just nod and put on a stony attitude, pretending you and your partner match harmoniously. But in reality, you clash. You are passionate, strong willed; he seems to reject every emotion. While his song is deep and bland, yours is full of wistful notes of the past and future.

He watches you this time, a stabilized pattern smashing itself through both of the voices. You watch as the blood caking on your hand gets refreshed and renewed with more of its kind, swirling and combing to just crack and dry again. A song of life and death. You know you're toying with people's souls, idly twirling the other ninja's life in your hands. To kill or not to kill? But you know your job is to kill, and that's what you always do. But, you tell yourself silently, a new soul is born for every one that is demolished. A new life exchanged for an old one. You tell yourself that you are making the process go by more quickly, that you are just helping the body decompose that much quicker.

Because, in the end, you know that you will be on the ground in the same position as the corpses here. Lifeless blood coming from your veins and eyes wide open in trepidation and fear.

It was his turn now, easily slashing at a ninja's face, one whom you did not recognize. But as with all the other enemies, his face is forever shrouded in a dark cloak of uncertainty and horror. You think that he's fleetingly pausing to think about what he could have done, should have done, and would have done. And in that pause, your partner grabs another soul and releases it, looking down at the body as if it did not bother him at all anymore. He saunters his gaze back to you, the protruding veins seeing right through you and corroding you down to mere wisps of your former self.

He's taunting you again, and you don't know if you can resist him anymore.

You know he won't stop, and even as he gets impatient with just defending himself against his attacker, you know that he will spill another soul out from another meaningless body, sloppily pouring life out of an organic, breathing human. It was clockwork, and its cornerstone would most definitely split and open if an outside force acted upon it. That outside force had to be you, but you are too scared to act, too scared to stand up to him. And just like you had imagined, even with a kunai just sliding by your head and nicking your hair, you see him dig the soul out from his assailant with simplicity.

His foes have stopped coming for him, and from your peripheral vision you see him standing silently, watching your every move with a fierce glare filled of Byakugan. He could see everything, every little detail that you would try to hide, and every little mistake that seemed to filter through your defenses. And just like your partner, your kunai eventually drives out the last remaining enemy soul to mercilessly be ripped from its master and shredded.

You tell yourself that it's over, that it's all done.

But when he starts to walk towards you, a new beat and rhythm comes into the song, one that you're not sure you can handle. His pace of walk is in cue with the frantic beats, but you carelessly realize that the new tempo is not to the song but to your heart. So, you just watch him come closer to you, hardened blood cracking and tearing as his hands crunch up into balls of insipid flesh. All you can do is sit and stare at the tiny crimson dots clashing with his pale eyes and skin. All you can do is silently wish…

He stops in front of you, and you give a steady frown to the earth.

His warmth is addicting, sucking you in and forever trapping you in its double-edged embrace. On one side is the hot, addictive side, while the other is shown to the rest of the world. The cold, unfeeling side that leaves you biting your lip and ignoring him as he lazily walks by. Maybe, if you're lucky, an intense look is sent your way, a fleeting glimpse of your secret rendezvous before it passes away from your needy grip and turns elsewhere. Turns to the woman he is bonded to, the woman that deserves his blazing eyes and smirking lips.

A woman that is not you.

And no matter how hard you try, you find that you are a replacement for his bondage. A free escape route from reality for a few nights a week. He tells you that he needs you, wants you, but ends up leaving to flee into another woman's warm embrace for the rest of the night.

Without a noise, his hand comes to cup your tilted head, his thumb coming to smear some of the blood from an appendage across the scowling cheek. A brilliant red mark contrasts to your skin, and you feel his gaze concentrating on his task of trailing your whole face. Wherever his hand touched, a streak of blood would trail in its wake, but all you can do is stand still. That's all you've been able to do.

His breath comes closer to your painted face, and he stops in midair, hovering and waiting, watching. Watching for that time when you will succumb to him again. And a few moments later, you do. A kiss flared and burned to life in the middle of a barren wasteland of death.

It was passionate-everything you think of as a kiss made only in the purest of love. But you know better. The passion was made from the escape of truth, from the escape of his prison that his family encompassed him in. He was everything you wanted, everything you needed. He was. But he is no longer yours, and you must share him, although you know a larger piece goes to the one that shares his best most of the nights. You have merely succeeded in obtaining a shard of him, a small, cracked piece of the past that cannot be mended again.

He pulls away first, breathing calmly while you are gasping for air. Your blood soaked hands trail their own red path of life against his pale skin, and for a moment, just for a moment, you can imagine that he is yours. That he will stay the whole night. That the next morning he will treat you as something worth giving a small, secret smile to. But the thought fades just as soon as it comes, and so do your dreams.

Dreams of you together, tangled up in the scarlet world that is just yours for the taking. He presses himself closer to you, tilting your head roughly and savagely claiming you.

…But you learned long ago that dreams don't come true.

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**A/N: **Well, do tell me what you thought of it. Although I'm probably not going to get a lot of reviews for this thing… Oh well. I unleashed an angst writer that I did not know even existed. Hmm, what depressing story will I come up with next? This idea is probably overused already though (the whole Neji is married-or is getting married-and Tenten is sad). Whatever (another commonly used term, although it is the only one that came to mind). :P


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